As per tradition around here...post your favorite L/R lineups. I'm gonna go ahead and include Giambi and Bourne as they'll be back soon (hopefully). So I'll not deal with Nyger or Johnson (who may bump Chiz)

This is where Johnson may have more value than Chiz as you could put him in LF or 2B and rest Bourne/Kip (Bourne may need it) and slide Dr. Smooth into CF. This is also where they're gonna miss Stubs, but Outman may prove worth it.

These are pretty solid line-ups both ways, but I wish we had a RH'ed power bat to plug in at DH against southpaws. Maybe a trade of Chiz for such a bat would be worthwhile.

I can also see a scenario where Giambi sits on the DL most of the year allowing some flexibility while keeping his intangibles on the bench. Then you could see a rotation at 3rd/C/DH for Chiz and Carlos, while keeping 3 RH'ed super utility guys.

Or you could just be normal and go with a 7 man pen. We get one extra spot because Carlos can play catcher, but you need two if you wanna go 8 man and have Big G on the roster. But we all know how much Tito loves his 8 man pen...

Indians led the league last season with a platoon advantage in 71% of the team's plate appearances. What's amazing about that is that of the 504 plate appearances against RHP for our RF, 94.4% of them came from Raburn, Stubbs, and Carson. The other 5.6% from Kubel and Carrera. Realistically, with Murphy in the fold, the Indians will should easily exceed a platoon advantage in 75% of their plate appearances this season and could get close to 80% with what they can do with the Santana/Gomes/Chisenhall playing time.

Johnson's a switch hitter, another reason why he made the club. A RH DH bat would be nice, but it's not essential by any means. On average, teams face a RH starter 75% of the time, so it's not a pressing need.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe